The largest black hole known to exist is TON 6I8 with a solar mass equivalent to 66 000 000 000 SunsSo large is it that it is not even classed as a supermassive black hole but an ultramassive one instead

surreptitious75 wrote:The largest black hole known to exist is TON 6I8 with a solar mass equivalent to 66 000 000 000 SunsSo large is it that it is not even classed as a supermassive black hole but an ultramassive one instead

Makes you wonder then what the solar mass equivalent of the largest supermassive black hole is.

And how to explain the existence of a universe that includes them in the mystery of why there's something and not nothing at all.

iambiguous wrote:Just one more thing "out there" to put your own existence into perspective.

According to some simulation theorists, that black hole isn't there unless you look at it. If you're not looking at it, there's no reason for the universe's cpu to render it. There are serious people who actually make this ridiculous argument.

I think the existence of black holes and other cosmological mysteries argue for some form of realism. There really is stuff "out there" and we can use science to learn about it.

And even if [and when] scientists [and all the rest of us] are no longer around, it is still around. But how does knowing this [if it is in fact true] enable us to grasp our own existence any more comprehensively?

"I" is "thrown" into existence. "I" dies. Beyond that your guess is as good as mine.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

iambiguous wrote:Just one more thing "out there" to put your own existence into perspective..

Well, it's big and massive and all that. But a single human brain may well be more complex.

And there may well be alien brains even more complex. Perhaps not the equivalent of 20,000,000,000 human brains, but big and bad enough to be one hell of a lot closer to "the whole truth" than we are.

Or [perhaps] even complex enough to know if there is a whole truth to be had.

And then of course those who lay claim to the mother of all brains: God's.

Complex enough even to bring itself into existence?

Sure, there may be alien brains that are bigger and more complex. But what it seemed like you were doing was trying to humble us. Putting our 'existence into perspective' We're small, we're nothing. By the random measure of mass, for some reason.

It certainly could put my own existence in A perspective. But it seems for you it puts it in some better perspective. A more humble one. One where we do not think we know or are things.

That's one of your memes, presented as if it is objectively implied.

A better perspective.

I see no reason to think it is better than some other perspective, nor even a remedy for whatever ill you are fighting like anyone else waving their flag, belief system or religion.

Is it better if that flag is waved in a self-effacing way, with all the better than thou implicit rather than stated`?

Karpel Tunnel wrote: Sure, there may be alien brains that are bigger and more complex. But what it seemed like you were doing was trying to humble us. Putting our 'existence into perspective' We're small, we're nothing. By the random measure of mass, for some reason.

Or, as Simon Critchley once suggested, "very little, almost nothing".

But that's just a fact, right?

And the thing about some folks is not only are they convinced they know all about how we live, but are, in turn, convinced they know all about how we ought to live too.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: It certainly could put my own existence in A perspective. But it seems for you it puts it in some better perspective. A more humble one. One where we do not think we know or are things.

Better or worse than what? All we have are the particular contexts in which we live. And then the extent to which we are or are not able to communicate to others what we think they mean.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I see no reason to think it is better than some other perspective, nor even a remedy for whatever ill you are fighting like anyone else waving their flag, belief system or religion.

Is it better if that flag is waved in a self-effacing way, with all the better than thou implicit rather than stated`?

Let's bring this down to earth. You choose the context.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I remain unconvinced.

Unconvinced about what? About, say, the relationship between this thread and the one in which we traded our own non-objectivist moral perspectives.

You're the pragmatist, right? And that works well for you if the goal is to feel less fractured and fragmented -- more comforted and consoled -- when confronting conflicting goods on a planet that revolves around our own [relatively puny] star.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

What? that we're very little almost nothing? No, that's not a fact, that's a perspective. Couldn’t bring yourself even to show the minimal respect of responding to the brain example.

And the thing about some folks is not only are they convinced they know all about how we live, but are, in turn, convinced they know all about how we ought to live too.

Your posts here in this thread imply you know also.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: It certainly could put my own existence in A perspective. But it seems for you it puts it in some better perspective. A more humble one. One where we do not think we know or are things.

Better or worse than what?

That it is a better perspective to think we are nearly nothing. Better than those objectivists who think they are important. But these are just two perspectives, one need have neither. I see no reason to have yours, but here you think it is a fact, lol.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I see no reason to think it is better than some other perspective, nor even a remedy for whatever ill you are fighting like anyone else waving their flag, belief system or religion.

Is it better if that flag is waved in a self-effacing way, with all the better than thou implicit rather than stated`?

Let's bring this down to earth. You choose the context.

This thread is a context. It is down to earth. You brought up this giant black hole and the perspective that this supposedly gives us, perhaps should give us. It certainly seemed like you were presenting the perspective that really we are nearly nothing. And keep doing it here. That is a context down to earth.

One man talking to his fellow humans. Then another man responding to what this man is doing. That is as down to earth as it can be.

If you aren't implying that we are nearly nothing and that having that perspective is better than thinking you are something, well, fine, say that. If you do think that is a better perspective, which seems pretty obvious, then own that. I have responded to that perspective. I have said I do not see any reason to take that one on.

Here it is, a real interaction, with a very specific incident.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I remain unconvinced.

Unconvinced about what? About, say, the relationship between this thread and the one in which we traded our own non-objectivist moral perspectives.

About the perspective you are putting forward here being either objective or better. I don't see any reason to walk around thinking I am nearly nothing. I remain unsold.

You're the pragmatist, right? And that works well for you if the goal is to feel less fractured and fragmented -- more comforted and consoled -- when confronting conflicting goods on a planet that revolves around our own [relatively puny] star.

Still going on with that insane interpretation of me solving problems (even though you also solve problems). And going on presenting your perspective that we should think we are small and nothing.

Note: I am not saying we should think we are big and special. Just noting your perspective, one you probably will not take responsibility for. Puny star. Your values. Puny, a value-laden word. As if... if we were massive and our star the biggest we might have some reason to be less humble than you think we should be.

You present you moral position or humble perspective. I respond. You start a thread, acting in the world, but now you want to talk about me. But you put forward a way one should look at things. Your thread, your perspective, your onus. You put forward an idea, a perspective you think it correct, better than those objectivist ones. I challenge your perspective. I say I see no need to take it on or consider it objective.

But you are off limits, as if you and others like you, and there are many who think we should think we are nearly nothing, are not affecting things. Are not your own stripe of objectivists. Are not trying to pull people to where they are...

Any well-being I might have that you do not have

must be viewed as based on some delusion.

That brings you comfort, perhaps.

Drowning victims, especially adults, can be dangerous. Someone who is panicking will instinctively clutch at anything and use it push themselves up. This means pushing their rescuer down, which is easy to do if the rescuer is tired, or if they've pinned their rescuer's arms.

Now I am not rescuing or attempting to. But I did swim past.

You see your drowning state as a noll state. A state created because you lack beliefs, lack objectivism.

What I see is someone who is drowning because he has perspectives and beliefs he considers better than others. I pointed out one of those beliefs here. Could be part of depression, the cognitive aspects. But whatever, you have a set of memes that are part of your drowning. If one questions those ideas and perspectives, you shift focus to what you think the other person believes, demand that they justify their positions, or in this case, my lack of one. I neither think I am puny, nearly nothing, nor that I am big and important. I see you drowning and drowning smug. The last pure man, without objective morals or perspectives. And you try to convince others, as in this thread.

To respond to that is the most grounded possible discussion. Since it is what is happening in this here between us.

But you spit on that. You do not take responsibility for your own perspective that you try to spread as you did in this thread. Hey, my peers, think you are nearly nothing.

I will just keep swimming past, thank you. I did not come to rescue you, nor is there any reason for me, a non-objectivist, to justify my continued participation in life.

A perspective on what though? Once we get down to a particular context [be it supermassive black holes or conflicting goods] there are perspectives able to be demonstrated as more or less in sync with as close as we are able to come to an objective reality.

And here "I" in the context of All There Is would seem to be very, very little indeed. But not nothing at all.

As to whether or not this is a "fact" it's true: Says who? What in fact is true objectively about the the brain in sync with "I" on this tiny little rock in the vastness of what we think we know [so far] about the universe?

On the other hand, nothing is not just a perspective until we can wholly grasp Existence itself.

And the thing about some folks is not only are they convinced they know all about how we live, but are, in turn, convinced they know all about how we ought to live too.

What I think I know is that my arguments here are entangled in existential contraptions, parts of which seem to reflect relationships in the either/or world, parts of which are considerably more problematic. My own value judgments at the intersection of dasein and political economy.

Just like your own arguments.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: It certainly could put my own existence in A perspective. But it seems for you it puts it in some better perspective. A more humble one. One where we do not think we know or are things.

Better or worse than what?

Karpel Tunnel wrote: That it is a better perspective to think we are nearly nothing. Better than those objectivists who think they are important. But these are just two perspectives, one need have neither. I see no reason to have yours, but here you think it is a fact, lol.

How could I possibly know that? I am only pointing to what I have come to believe is reasonable "here and now". That's as close as I can come to a fact. This is in fact true. I think. But I have no way in which to demonstrate that it is better or worse than what you think is true. And both of us are ever embedded in a world where new experiences, new relationships and access to new ideas might reconfigure even that frame of mind.

Then it comes down to being able to think yourself into arguing that what you believe now reflects progress over what you thought before. Though [perhaps] far removed from what you will think next year.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: I see no reason to think it is better than some other perspective, nor even a remedy for whatever ill you are fighting like anyone else waving their flag, belief system or religion.

Is it better if that flag is waved in a self-effacing way, with all the better than thou implicit rather than stated`?

Let's bring this down to earth. You choose the context.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: This thread is a context. It is down to earth. You brought up this giant black hole and the perspective that this supposedly gives us, perhaps should give us. It certainly seemed like you were presenting the perspective that really we are nearly nothing. And keep doing it here. That is a context down to earth.

One man talking to his fellow humans. Then another man responding to what this man is doing. That is as down to earth as it can be.

Now this in my view is basically a bullshit answer. It's you who keep insisting that what I think here is meant to be conveyed as that which I believe in turn that all others must think too. As though this is something that I am able to demonstrate.

For me this always revolves around the manner in which any particular "I" makes a distinction between objective reality and a personal opinion in the is/ought world.

I noted my own personal reaction to the seeming facts presented in the documentary. It seems reasonable to me to think and to feel as I do here and now.

But then how do others think and feel about it? You're the one who seems intent on making this about a "better" or "worse" reaction.

Unconvinced about what? About, say, the relationship between this thread and the one in which we traded our own non-objectivist moral perspectives?

Karpel Tunnel wrote: About the perspective you are putting forward here being either objective or better. I don't see any reason to walk around thinking I am nearly nothing. I remain unsold.

And all I can then do is to grapple with how someone is able to convince himself that in the stupendous vastness of "all there is" their own particular "I" is not perceived as nearly nothing. And "I" conclude that perhaps the reason is this: that thinking like this is in fact more conmforting and consoling psychologically.

But beyond that [in not being you] this is sheer conjecture. You appear to me as someone able to be pragmatic even in regard to the biggest questions of them all. Birth, school, work, death. Just like all the rest of us. Only considerably more adept [than "I" am] at living with it.

Well, here and now anyway.

This aspect of my reaction to you:

You're the pragmatist, right? And that works well for you if the goal is to feel less fractured and fragmented -- more comforted and consoled -- when confronting conflicting goods on a planet that revolves around our own [relatively puny] star.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: Still going on with that insane interpretation of me solving problems (even though you also solve problems). And going on presenting your perspective that we should think we are small and nothing.

What problem? We need a context, a set of behaviors, and conflicting points of view. Then we can grope about attempting to discuss what it means to solve it in the context of all there is.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: Note: I am not saying we should think we are big and special. Just noting your perspective, one you probably will not take responsibility for. Puny star. Your values. Puny, a value-laden word. As if... if we were massive and our star the biggest we might have some reason to be less humble than you think we should be.

Puny was in fact [there and then] how I felt when watching the documentary. And all that more problematic in the is/ought world. Given the manner in which I construe the nature of "I" at the intersection of dasein, conflicting goods and political power.

And it's not about being humble. That's your word. It's more in sync [psychologically] with that which some call "existential angst", what some call the "absurdity of life", what some call "nausea". When confronting the simply mind-boggling gap between "I" and "all there is".

Well, mind-boggling to me anyway.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: You present you moral position or humble perspective. I respond. You start a thread, acting in the world, but now you want to talk about me. But you put forward a way one should look at things. Your thread, your perspective, your onus. You put forward an idea, a perspective you think it correct, better than those objectivist ones. I challenge your perspective. I say I see no need to take it on or consider it objective.

Here of course we will have to agree to disagree. This is how you portray my motivation and intentions. I don't think this is true but how can I ever really be sure?

I'm still basically convince that I am here as the embodiment of this:

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest.

But there is no way [so far] I have ever been able to pin this down. The existential variables involved here [past and present] are way, way, way beyond my capacity to ever wholly understand or control. And that's just in regard to why "I" choose what I do from moment to moment. Let alone how this fits into the seeming facts presented in the documentary.

And what brings me comfort are distractions.

Still, if I am ever to yank myself up out of this hole on this puny little rock in the vastness of all there is, I can only come into places like this and note the narratives of others.

As for this...

Drowning victims, especially adults, can be dangerous. Someone who is panicking will instinctively clutch at anything and use it push themselves up. This means pushing their rescuer down, which is easy to do if the rescuer is tired, or if they've pinned their rescuer's arms.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: Now I am not rescuing or attempting to. But I did swim past.

You see your drowning state as a noll state. A state created because you lack beliefs, lack objectivism.

What I see is someone who is drowning because he has perspectives and beliefs he considers better than others. I pointed out one of those beliefs here. Could be part of depression, the cognitive aspects. But whatever, you have a set of memes that are part of your drowning. If one questions those ideas and perspectives, you shift focus to what you think the other person believes, demand that they justify their positions, or in this case, my lack of one. I neither think I am puny, nearly nothing, nor that I am big and important. I see you drowning and drowning smug. The last pure man, without objective morals or perspectives. And you try to convince others, as in this thread.

To respond to that is the most grounded possible discussion. Since it is what is happening in this here between us.

But you spit on that. You do not take responsibility for your own perspective that you try to spread as you did in this thread. Hey, my peers, think you are nearly nothing.

I will just keep swimming past, thank you. I did not come to rescue you, nor is there any reason for me, a non-objectivist, to justify my continued participation in life.

The otter has no objectivism but he is quite pragmatic.

I will not read your response.

...my reaction comes down somewhere between "ad-hom" and "psychobabble". Huffing and puffing. Making me the issue.

In an event, you are not reading this so at least you get the last word.

But I have my own suspicions regarding why you react as you do.

Note to Phyllo:

Tell him what they are.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

It's the mirror image of other objectivists who tell you to feel like you are special or important.

Iamb assumes that anyone who is not in his hole has some kind of contraption. He does not want to consider that his hole is created, in part or in the main, by his contraptions: here, that it is better to walk around thinking I am nearly nothing.

If you engage with him, he will develop a theory about your contraption - in my case, that I believe in pragmatism, rather than simply being pragmatic, that is solving problems, trying to achieve things, trying to avoid other things. STuff he and everyone else does.

It has to be the case that one has a contraption or one should be suffering just like him.

I raised the nature of the otter, a social mammal capable even of play - to show that one need not have contraptions to NOT be depressed and disengaged from life and other people. Organisms without a disease will tend to have a complex relation to life, certainly suffering in certain circumstances but also engaged and enjoying life in other circumstances.

For Iamb the base, contraptionless experience of life is depressed, isolated and nihilistic. He sees this as what life MUST be like, regardless of circumstance, if one does not have contraptions to rely on.

This position is not based on science. It is his assumption. And he has resisted considering other sources for his suffering as the main ones.

Fine, his choice.

Here in this thread he presented the 'right' attitude. The attitude he thinks one should have towards our existence. We are nearly nothing on a planet circling a puny star.

There are several problems with this: off the bat, it implies that if, say, there was a life form in the huge black hole, it would have better grounds to think it was great. Which is just silly. Or if there was a lifeform that was enourmous itself, it would be justified in thinking it was great and special. Also silly. The amount of matter that makes one up or one's sun up does not change the fundamental issues around existence. And it's all speculative nonsense.

I raised the issue of the complexity of brains, just to highlight the oddness of using mass to determine importance or specialness or the not being nothingness. But, to be clear, I am not arguing that because our brains are more complex than anything else we know of, this means we are important.

So....He is telling us we should think of ourselves as small and nearly nothing.

I see no reason to take up this belief. I see no reason to take up the opposite belief.

He is selling part of his depression as if it is a fact.

Is he an objectivist? Well, in this thread he actually does refer to his position as a fact. But in general he avoids being an objectivist by making disclaimers. Fine.

But he is still selling a position, even if, unlike say a fundamentalist, he will at times say he is not sure. But since not being sure is the attitude he is selling, it is not clear to me this moves him away from being

another voice out there telling us how to live.

Which is also fine with me.

If he could own it. If he can't own it, then it makes any interaction pointless because he will then make any interaction about me, even if he starts the thread and presents a position, suddenly the onus is on me to prove something or to prove that I am not something.

It is oddly like the types of discussions one can have with a narcissist, though he is obviously much nicer or 'nicer' than narcissists are. Since it is the internet it is hard to tell whether the citation marks belong or not.

I think, but am not sure, that the best he can feel is when he is in putting the objectivist or anyone he thinks is an objectivist or anyone feeling better than him in the position of having to justify him or herself.

So, if one is going to interact with Iamb, one should be ready to have one's main points ignored, especially any regarding him and his positions, and to be treated as if one is the only one who has any onus to justify things.

That might be useful for some people. And then it might not be useful, certainly after a time.

It's the mirror image of other objectivists who tell you to feel like you are special or important.

Yawn.

I keep noting that my own argument here is just another existential contraption. One subject to change given new experiences, relationships, information, knowledge, ideas etc.

Then he insists that this in and of itself is just my own rendition of objectivism.

Heads he always wins, tails I always lose.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:Iamb assumes that anyone who is not in his hole has some kind of contraption. He does not want to consider that his hole is created, in part or in the main, by his contraptions: here, that it is better to walk around thinking I am nearly nothing.

I think that others are not in my hole because they do not construe the existential interactions of men and women at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political power in the same way that I do.

I ask them to bring their own value judgments "out into the world that we live in" and to describe the components of their own moral narrative in a context that we are likely to be familiar with.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:If you engage with him, he will develop a theory about your contraption - in my case, that I believe in pragmatism, rather than simply being pragmatic, that is solving problems, trying to achieve things, trying to avoid other things. STuff he and everyone else does.

No, I point out how assesments like this are entirely "general descriptions" of human interactions. Intellectual contraptions. Instead I want him to focus on the manner in which he contrues the meaning of pragmatism and to note how he then mangages to be less "fractured and fragmented" than "I" am given the components of my own assessment [rooted in moral nihilism] in a No God world.

Within a particular context in which conflicting goods are precipitating, among other things, human pain and suffering.

Karpel Tunnel wrote:I raised the nature of the otter, a social mammal capable even of play - to show that one need not have contraptions to NOT be depressed and disengaged from life and other people.

Otters!!! As though their own interactions are not embedded almost entirely in biological imperatives. What do they know of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy? What do they know of pragmatism? What do they know of depression?

Karpel Tunnel wrote:For Iamb the base, contraptionless experience of life is depressed, isolated and nihilistic. He sees this as what life MUST be like, regardless of circumstance, if one does not have contraptions to rely on.

How ridiculous. I can only relate to others the manner in which I consture "the human condition" here and now. I can only relate the components of my own moral and political narrative and to note how the implications of thinking of them as I -- "I" -- do seem reasonable to me. And even then only in regard to the is/ought world.

In no way would I argue that those who are not depressed, isolated or nihilistic are wrong in the way they look at world around us. All I can do is to note the manner in which "I" look at it. And then to react to manner in which others react to that.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: This position is not based on science. It is his assumption. And he has resisted considering other sources for his suffering as the main ones.

The main sources of my suffering here and now are rooted by and large in a set of circumstances over which I have very little control: my age, my health, the components of my personality. My proximity to death and oblivion.

The part about being in a hole is all but moot to me now. My long years of political activism are dead and gone. Instead, I wait patiently for godot by filling my time with as much fulfilment and satisfaction as I can. My distractions. They still don't let me down.

Though, sure, given this set of circumstances, the part about being "nearly nothing on a planet circling a puny star" becomes all that much more pronounced.

For better and for worse. Worse because there does not appear to be any fundamental meaning I can anchor "I" to, but better because I can't blame myself for failing to find it. I openly and honestly don't believe that it even exist.

While at the same time acknowledging that there does not appear to be a way for any mere mortal to demonstrate it one way or the other.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: Fine, his choice.

Indeed, but is this a choice that I am making autonomously? Even that seems beyond my reach.

Then back again to his "general description" mentality:

Karpel Tunnel wrote: There are several problems with this: off the bat, it implies that if, say, there was a life form in the huge black hole, it would have better grounds to think it was great. Which is just silly. Or if there was a lifeform that was enourmous itself, it would be justified in thinking it was great and special. Also silly. The amount of matter that makes one up or one's sun up does not change the fundamental issues around existence. And it's all speculative nonsense.

Which lifeform? In what set of circumstances? Justifying what to be either true or false, right or wrong, good or bad? Of course, he then sets himself up here as the one who can properly distinguish between serious philosophy and speculative nonsense. If only as a "pragmatist".

Karpel Tunnel wrote: So....He is telling us we should think of ourselves as small and nearly nothing.

No, I am pointing out that in particvular contexts "I" feel small and nearly nothing. And that it does not appear to me to be necessarily irrational that any particular "I" in the context of All There Is might also feel the same.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: He is selling part of his depression as if it is a fact.

I'm not depressed. That's his rendition of me.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: If he could own it. If he can't own it, then it makes any interaction pointless because he will then make any interaction about me, even if he starts the thread and presents a position, suddenly the onus is on me to prove something or to prove that I am not something.

More intellectual psycho-babble to me. The only "onus" that interest me is the manner in which any particular individual reacts to the question "how ought one to live"?

And here the OP may or may not be deemed relevant by any particular one of us.

Karpel Tunnel wrote: So, if one is going to interact with Iamb, one should be ready to have one's main points ignored, especially any regarding him and his positions, and to be treated as if one is the only one who has any onus to justify things.

By all means, if this is what you imagine the truth about me to be, avoid me like the plague.

Just ponder the possibility that how KT portrays me here is in and of itself merely the manner in which he claims that I portray him.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

RaptorWizard - Secret Garden of Rare Quotes viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194124RevanFailNhilusOwn https://www.youtube.com/user/RevanFailNhilusOwnmachine/celebi tesla Polarities/Extremities http://montalk.net/The Dragon Mind of Zen https://www.youtube.com/user/bodhichildLuke Skywalker http://www.thehiddenrecords.com/How many stars are there? I'm going to be the first one to see them all!The idea is to carry a wish crown, a kind of shimmering artwork or network gallery, a set of bands or chosen assignments that flips a GameBoyColor into a Will-o~the+Wisp/ectoplasm, or the whispering of the Thunder being the Oracle.The highest North is the Heaviest helmet, immersing you into all of the constellations!!Breton to Skyrim, so the Devil made multifaceted copies of himself that got progressively better along the Way! Polaris Statues have orbs that stand out from all the rest slows people down! The dark side is small compared to the Light! Lao Tzu is Yoda’s Tao.

And think of this: in multiple universes the numbers go higher, and in what sense does curveture modify that idea?

Or infinity does not coincide with that theory, and the curve must be never ending to form a circle / sphere, and how does that work? Not being well dead in physics, how can an empirical demonstration ever even begin to ponder these questions?